


i don’t want your pain

by cybergore



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Family Issues, Hurt No Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love, old dorms referenced, rinne thinks he’s been a bad brother to hiiro, the rest of crazyb & tatsumi ment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybergore/pseuds/cybergore
Summary: there’s a very distinct moment in a gambler’s life, where you’re watching the stakes shoot up, watching your luck melt away. you witness whatever hope you’d had vanishing down the drain and slipping far out of your reach. it’s gut wrenching, leaves you clutching at the edge of the table, the overhang of a cliff, searching for something to latch onto as the rest of you plummets.this is that moment.
Relationships: Amagi Hiiro & Amagi Rinne, Amagi Rinne/Shiina Niki, Ayase Mayoi/Shiina Niki
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	i don’t want your pain

**Author's Note:**

> smarter ways of saying it - hunny

Rinne doesn’t want to check his phone.

It’s taunting him from where it lies, facedown on his little brother’s mattress. The clear cell phone case displays a polaroid photo featuring Rinne and the rest of his Crazy:B squad. Petty as always, he outstretches a hand lazily and places two fingers over where Niki’s face appears in the picture.

Rinne’s not really in the mood to see Niki’s infectious smile right now.

He’s never one to commit, though, so a moment later, Rinne withdraws the hand and rolls over on Hiiro’s lumpy mattress, relocating his arm to rest over his eyes and block out the dorm’s horrendous fluorescent lighting.

This particular whim, and bout of dramatic behavior, too, is due to his own nerves, the whole ordeal revolving around the fact that Rinne doesn’t want to check his phone. Because he knows if he checks his phone, he’ll see a new message waiting in his inbox.

(Probably more than  _ one, _ but Rinne’s popularity isn’t really the thing on his mind at the moment.)

The message he’s focused on will be short, probably. Concise, to the point, businesslike in the way that Niki gets when he’s done with Rinne’s bullshit and just wants to put whatever mess Rinne has gotten them into to rest already.

This sure is a mess, alright.

He shifts again, and is even more aware of how uncomfortable this damn mattress is beneath him. Jeez, can’t Yumenosaki spring for beds that  _ won’t _ give its precious idol students spinal damage?

Even the couch at Himeru’s place was more comfortable than this. Damn, Rinne wishes he were there right now. Himeru’s joint had better lighting, too, and snacks, but he’d kicked Rinne out about two hours ago, bitching about how Rinne needed to learn to face his own problems.

_ Bullshit. _ Total BS! Rinne faces problems just fine. He totally scared the pants off that bitchy skank at the mall who was ribbing Kohaku about his hairstyle. And Rinne’s been in  _ more _ than his fair share of scrapes.

Like Himeru has any room to talk, anyways. That guy, he’d just gossip all day long about people he’s got a problem with, and never say shit to their faces.

No, Rinne definitely doesn’t need advice in being confrontational from  _ Himeru. _

Still, that spat cost Rinne a comfortable place to stretch out, and now he’s reduced to lying on his little bro’s shitty futon.

He’s  _ so bored. _ He fuck around on his phone to kill time, that’s out. There’s no TV or anything in the Alkaloid dorm, and Rinne’ll be damned before he picks up one of Tatsumi’s nerdy bibles or Hiiro’s weird sci-fi novels. He’s pretty sure he spied a stack of BL or something underneath little Aira’s bed, which  _ maybe _ he’d be interested in, depending on the content. But then it occurred to Rinne that it’s pretty fucking weird to be reading gay shit that belongs to a fifteen year old, so that’s out.

Besides, Rinne doesn’t know if he could trust himself to read a whole damn story about dudes falling in love, and not apply the whole deal to the sorry situation his own life’s in right now.

He picks his head up from Hiiro’s pillow and scans the room again, eyes zeroing in on a brightly colored hardcover resting on the foot of Mayoi’s bed.

It flashes through Rinne’s mind that maybe he shouldn’t be messing with other people’s shit, but he’s never really been one to care about dumb social rules, and besides, he’s bored out of his _ mind. _

Rinne’s pretty sure that if he died of boredom, and it was because stupid etiquette kept him from rifling through Ayase Mayoi’s little diary or whatever, the poor purple dude would blame himself forever, and it’d only add to whatever crippling self hatred he’s dealing with. So, really, Rinne reasons with himself as he skims the cover of the book, he’s doing Mayoi a favor.

What’s interesting about the little number in Rinne’s hands is that, judging from the title and high resolution images of very fancy looking dishes pasted all over, it’s a cookbook, and Rinne has never heard of Alkaloid’s very own shut-in being interested in food preparation of any kind.

Whatever minimal high hopes Rinne had had for this book evaporate considerably when he opens to the contents page.

A pale yellow sticky note is pasted to the paper, and in familiar, sloping handwriting it reads,

_ Hi Mayo-san! _

_ I’ve bookmarked some of my favorite dishes and some things that I think you’ll like. Feel free to do the same and mark down anything that looks good to you, and maybe we’ll try whipping something up together. I’d be happy to guide you through it. _

_ —Niki :) _

There’s a very distinct moment in a gambler’s life, where you’re watching the stakes shoot up, watching your luck melt away. You witness whatever hope you’d had vanishing down the drain and slipping far out of your reach. It’s gut wrenching, leaves you clutching at the edge of the table, the overhang of a cliff, searching for something to latch onto as the rest of you plummets.

This is that moment.

Now moving on autopilot, Rinne’s hands flick through the book. Most pages have no post-its, but still, many do, and Rinne can’t keep himself from reading each word scrawled on each one.

_ This one reminds me of that story you told me about your grandmother!! _

_ …And I remember hearing you say that you like jelly-filled cookies, so… _

_ I have a feeling you’ll be good at seasoning, though :) _

_ Last time we tried baking something, I noticed that you have a knack for that, Mayoi-san! _

Rinne’s heart sinks further with each cutely punctuated sentence.

By the time he’s reached the end of the cookbook, read all of Niki’s annotations, he feels like he would collapse in on himself at even the slightest touch.

Rinne leans forward and places his head in his hands, letting the book fall shut in his lap. He closes his eyes against the sharp feeling building behind his eyelids, and presses the heels of his palms into his temples.

It doesn’t make  _ sense _ for him to feel this way about something as dumb and innocuous as a stupid fucking  _ cookbook _ with  _ sticky notes on it. _

What makes it hurt, Rinne guesses, is that  _ is _ stupid. It’s dumb and romantic and clichéd, and it’s the kind of thing that Niki would  _ never _ do. And yet, he’s doing it. For Ayase Mayoi, of all people.

Rinne wonders if maybe, maybe he’d done something differently, hadn’t come on so strong, hadn’t been such a nuisance, maybe he’d be the one with his name scribbled in Niki’s handwriting beside a little smiley-face.

He takes in a deep breath and lets it go.

_ Maybe, if I— _

“Nii-chan!”

Rinne nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of Hiiro’s excited crow, dueted by the aggressive slamming open of the dorm room’s door. He flinches, and the book falls out of his lap and onto the floor, facedown.

“Nii-chan, you’re here!” Hiiro says, catapulting himself across the room and into Hiiro’s arms. Rinne catches Hiiro just in time, wrapping his arms around his little brother out of reflex.

“Hey, Hiiro,” Rinne says, attempting to keep any and all shakiness out of his voice. It would be so fucking embarrassing to let his little bro see him fall apart.

Besides, Hiiro needs a good role model. A strong one. And Rinne may have fucked that up in the past, but he’s not about to do it again.

“I told ya I was gonna be here, ya know,” Rinne says, pulling back enough to look his brother in the eye. Hiiro flashes him an enormous grin, and it still guts Rinne, to this day, fucking karate chops him in the chest to think that his presence could bring someone joy like that.

“Yeah, but you’re  _ actually _ here! Sometimes you say that you’re gonna show up, but you don’t,” Hiiro says matter-of-factly, seeming not to notice the way Rinne has to choke back a wince at his words.

“Yeah, well,” Rinne shrugs, glancing away from the penetrating blue eyes across from him. “ ’M gonna show up from now on, ya know?”

“I know!”

The Alkaloid dorm’s door opens again, this time with less needless force, and in walk the rest of the gang. Little Aira, first, going on some rant or other—that kid can talk for ages, Rinne knows—then, Tatsumi, wearing an indulgent smile as he nods along to whatever Aira’s saying.

Finally, Mayoi.

Mayoi walks in, face alight with the same nervous, kinetic expression as always. Ayase Mayoi always looks like he’s on edge, about to detonate and take everyone down with him. He looks like he wishes he could keep everyone else away for that reason.

Rinne wonders if he could’ve been like him,  _ been him, _ in any other universe.

Mayoi must notice Rinne’s eyes trained on him, because his mouth forms a surprised little  _ oh  _ and he nearly stumbles in his rush to greet him.

“Amagi-san! The-the older Amagi-san, hello…” Mayoi trails off, fidgeting awkwardly behind his other two unitmates.

Rinne swallows thickly and manages a tight nod. “Yo.”

Mayoi’s face falls and he looks away quickly, expression crumpling.

Tatsumi glances between the two of them, but neither Hiiro nor Aira seem to notice. Instead, Hiiro grabs Rinne’s shoulders and shakes,  _ hard. _

“Nii-chan, nii-chan, wanna hear something funny that happened at unit practice today?” Hiiro asks, eyes wide and sparkling with the novelty of this close proximity to his brother.

Rinne nods. “Hell yeah. Fill me in, lil bro.”

Hiiro launches into the story, involving some kid named Tsukasa-san and his box of donuts, and Aira joins them, sitting on the edge of Hiiro’s bed to jump in with his own narrative or admonish Hiiro’s bad storytelling when he sees fit.

Meanwhile, Tatsumi and Mayoi make themselves comfortable, and Mayoi pulls out his phone and busies himself tapping away at the screen. At some point, he lets out a small giggle at something and his cheeks tint pink slightly, and Rinne’s whole body burns with curiosity.

Is he laughing at something Niki sent him…?

“So, then, Tsukasa-san’s like, ‘ooooh, Tori-kun’s gonna be soooo mad’,” Hiiro says, gesturing animatedly as Aira nods in the background.

Rinne nods, trying to tune back in and  _ not be a shitty brother right now, damn it. _ “Uh-huh, Tori-kun, right.”

Out of the corner of his eye, though, he sees his phone screen light up where it’s pressed against Hiiro’s sheets, and to follow, there’s a quick buzz piercing the air of the room.

Hiiro pauses his storytelling to blink at Rinne’s phone, where it lies on his bedspread. “Aren’t’cha gonna answer that, nii-chan? Could be something important.”

For a second, Rinne considers making an excuse or something, continuing to avoid this.

But then he glances across the room at Mayoi, who’s eyes haven’t left his own phone screen, sharp teeth pulled into a tiny smile, soft look in his eyes.

And Rinne’s hit with the urge to cry, and hit something, and cry some more.

Rinne doesn’t want to check his phone.

But even more than that, he doesn’t want to fucking wait around dreading whatever’s waiting for him there. He as good as knows what’s seeping in the depths of his text messages, especially after the fucking cookbook. So what’s he waiting for?

Rinne’s just gotta rip that band-aid off.

So he types in his passcode, and clicks on the text message icon, ignoring the red notifican  _ ‘7’ _ in the corner. Two messages down from the most recent is the name  _ Niki, _ accompanied by an objectively horrifying photo of the man in question.

It’s a close-up, taken from beneath Niki’s chin, while he’s asleep. Photography courtesy of Kohaku, who had stumbled upon a passed-out Niki in one of the practice rooms before their unit met up. The photo allows you to see  _ straight _ up Niki’s nostril. Normally, Rinne thinks it’s fucking hilarious.

Right now, he’s not really feeling the humor.

He clicks on Niki’s name, not giving himself a minute to soak in it, jumping straight in like he always does.

Niki:  _ Sorry, Rinne-kun. I know you wanted it to work out, but I don’t like you that way. Besides, I really don’t think you’re ready for that sort of commitm _

Rinne’s eyesight blurs up too much for him to read past there, and besides, he’s got the general idea.

He’s been rejected.

And it’s fine. It’s fucking fine.

Rinne stands abruptly, avoiding eye contact with his brother and the rest of his unitmates. “I gotta go,” he says, raking a hand through his hair. “Uh, thanks for lettin’ me crash. I just… got somewhere to be.”

His eyes dart around the room, desperate for something to look at that isn’t the gaze of his disappointed brother, or god forbid, Mayoi’s look of mixed-up pity and confusion.

Rinne’s eyes land on the book, lying on the floor, with the back cover facing up.

And he sees something he hadn’t seen before, makes it out through the burning blur of his eyes.

A heart, doodled messily on the back of the book that Niki gave to Mayoi as a gift.

A heart.

Rinne nods to himself and then turns on his heel, walks quickly out of the Alkaloid, out of Yumenosaki, out and out and out, wishes he could get out of his damn head.

So, yeah, it’s fucking fine.

But even Rinne isn’t able to lie and say  _ his _ heart is.

**Author's Note:**

> sad shit is all i post anymore sorry fans


End file.
